"The Long Walk Home"

"The Long Walk Home" is Will North's first novel although he is an award-winning author, coauthor, or ghostwriter of half a dozen nonfiction books.  He divides his time between Seattle, WA, and Great Britain and has written several other novels after this one was published in 2007.  I'm tempted to take a Friday afternoon off to see if I can catch him with his community of writers and dear friends who like to gather at Ponti's Restaurant  almost every Friday afternoon but that might be challenging given there are several restaurants by that name in Seattle!

I loved this book!  American Alec Hudson has walked from London's Heathrow Airport to Fiona Edwards' bed and breakfast located on Tan y Gadair Farm in Wales -- located at the base of a mountain that Alec and his late ex-wife, Gwynne, climbed many years ago.  He's there to scatter her ashes on the mountain as her last request.  What Alec finds in Wales is something totally unexpected.

This is a love story -- or perhaps I should say four love stories -- so beautifully told that I felt like I could reach out and touch all the characters.  I wanted them to be real so I can sit down and have tea with them.  North has a way of writing that invited me into the story and brought the characters to life with such reality and humor that I didn't want the novel to end.  The story begins in April of 1999 and ends in December of 2005 but really that's only the beginning!  pazt